Daily Dose Pick: John Jonas Gruen

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Photographer and author John Jonas Gruen’s candid portraits feature some of the most important American artists of the last 50 years — usually at the beach.

The vast archives of Gruen’s culture criticism and elegant, intimate photography are now celebrated in a Whitney Museum exhibition. His pictures of legends like John and Yoko, Willem de Kooning, Maria Callas, and Felix Gonzalez-Torres serve as both fine art and an insider’s view of a time and place in East Coast art history.

Learn more about the Whitney exhibition, brush up on Gruen’s bygone Hamptons history, and buy a copy of his autobiography, Callas Kissed Me…Lenny Too!

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Click through below for a gallery of Gruen’s portrait photography.

Glenn Ligon, 1998. Courtesy of the Whitney Museum

Felix Gonzalez-Torres

Yoko Ono, 1995. Courtesy of the Whitney Museum

Willem de Kooning, Water Mill, 1960. Photograph © 2010 John Jonas Gruen

Robert Rauschenberg, Flying Point Beach, Water Mill, 1959. Photograph © 2010 John Jonas Gruen

Willem de Kooning, 1959. Courtesy of the Whitney Museum

Jasper Johns, Flying Point Beach, Water Mill, 1959. Photograph © 2010 John Jonas Gruen

Larry Rivers, Southampton, 1967. Photograph © 2010 John Jonas Gruen

Marisol, 1960s. Photograph © 2010 John Jonas Gruen

Young in the Hamptons, Water Mill, 1961. Photograph © 2010 John Jonas Gruen